TY - JOUR
AU - Tyler,John H.
AU - Lofstrom,Magnus
TI - Is the GED an Effective Route to Postsecondary Education for School Dropouts?
JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL - No. 13816
PY - 2008
Y2 - February 2008
DO - 10.3386/w13816
UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13816
L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13816.pdf
N1 - Author contact info:
John H. Tyler
Box 1938
340 Brook Street
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-1036
Fax: 401/863-1276
E-Mail: john_tyler@brown.edu
Magnus Lofstrom
Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)
500 Washington Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94111
E-Mail: lofstrom@ppic.org
AB - We use data from the Texas Schools Microdata Panel (TSMP) to examine the extent to which dropouts use the GED as a route to post-secondary education. The paper develops a model pointing out the potential biases in estimating the effects of taking the "GED path" to postsecondary education. Lacking suitable instruments that would allow us to directly address potential biases, our approach is to base our estimates on a set of academically "at risk" students who are very similar in the 8th grade. We observe that the eventual high school graduates in this group have much better postsecondary education outcomes than do the similar at-risk 8th graders who dropped out and obtained a GED. Our model explains the observed differences, and allows for a discussion of the policy challenges inherent in improving the postsecondary outcomes of dropouts.
ER -